Moving on
by Names.Of.The.Forgotten
Summary: it's been two weeks since Atem left for the after life, and Yugi feels his world is crumbling around him. Will Tea, Tristan, and Joey be able to help him move on? Short one-shot


**:O A new story? what? hmmm.. hope you like... OH. and this is my first ever story that's written in first person... hope it's okay... **

**Feedback is much wanted/needed.**

_It's too much. I can't take it. This is something I can't move on from... Oh, If only Yami- No... Atem were here, he'd know what to do..._

"Why?" I asked myself; I hadn't wanted the Pharaoh to leave, it was cruel of me to want him to stay when he longed for peace and rest for so long. He deserves it.

The Pharaoh, he did so much for my friends and I... and he impacted all our lives; whether he did it knowingly or not, it doesn't matter anymore. He's happy... so.. shouldn't that mean I should be too?

Tea, Tristan, Joey. What had they felt when Atem left? they seem just fine now, like it never happened to begin with... How can they do that? It makes me want to cry. Every time I think of him, I just want to shut myself off from the world.

How was it easy for them to move on so quickly? To let go of a friend. Would they do the same thing if I left? move on? It's hard to think about sometimes, knowing that I had already lost everything.

Tea, Tristan, Joey... What's going through your mind's right now?

Tears flow down my cheeks- I don't realize this though. I stare up at the ceiling pondering to myself the 'what ifs' of the predicament.

I hear a knock, but i ignore it, and turn my gaze to the wall next to me. It was probably my grandfather. He'd begged me to eat something, but I kept refusing. I was never in the mood to eat, I even started passing out and he'd gotten worried.

I refused to go to school, I refuse to even _leave my room._ All I could do, it seems, is wallow in my own self pity.

You'd think that a person like myself would encourage people to move on with their lives after a tragedy... but that's not always true.

The knock sounded again, impatient this time as it seemed to beat fiercely and cause my door to bust open, but it didn't.

The knocking stopped, and instead of footsteps walking away, there were feet shuffling across the hardwood floor beyond the door. Multiple feet; before I know it, the door creaked open, and there stood the three friends I thought wouldn't care.

Tea, Tristan, and Joey.

"Hey Yugi..." Tea was the first to speak, as well as the first to walk in fully, "What happened to you? we've been worried sick..." she said, her voice low.

I didn't speak, I couldn't. I hadn't spoken to anyone in the past two weeks since Atem left. He knew that he should, and probably would speak to someone eventually, but for right now, he couldn't even muster the strength to even get out of bed to use the toilet.

"Please Yug, speak to us.."

_Joey. I wish I could tell you everything that's on my mind, but I can't... it's too painful to even speak of..._

"Yugi, we know you're upset about the pharaoh leaving, but you gotta move on dude. It's been almost two weeks now, and you have us so worried as to think you died..."

I slowly tore my unblinking gaze from the wall, and moved my body around to face the three that now stood at the edge of my bed.

_Tristan, if only knew how hard it was for me to forget... I'm trying, but there's a part of me that will never recover from this..._

"I'm sorry." I croaked, it was faint and raspy after all this time of being mute. I hadn't used it since the day Atem left...

When I spoke, Tea, Tristan, and Joey weren't jumping for joy at the sound of my voice- I didn't expect them to. It seemed, for them, that they only had one thing to take care of at the moment... me.

"Yugi, there's nothing to be sorry for," Tea started, "Well all miss the pharaoh more than you may even care to realize, but Yugi... We all have to move on with our lives at some point." She finished sympathetically.

"No." I replied in a strained whisper. I rolled over, facing my wall, back to the three once again.

"Yugi! Pull your self together!" Joey said harshly, "No one wanted the pharaoh to leave. But if you keep up with this 'hiding away and refusing' charade, you're going to wind up dead!" he exclaimed.

From the sound of his voice, Yugi knew he must be fighting back the urge to cry.

"Yugi... if you died... what would we do?" Tea added, tears seeping into her voice as she agreed with Joey.

"Stop it."

This surprised me, even Joey and Tea; when I turned around again, Tristan was facing the door, head down and face expressionless.

"Just stop." he repeated, "Tristan.." Tea and Joey said in unison.

"If Yugi wants to keep it up, then fine. Let him. He doesn't seem to care for us anyway," he turned his head towards Yugi, eyes accusatory as he pointedly faced him. He could already see the tears flowing like a river as he fought them so as to not choke his words.

"If all you want to do is to shut yourself out from the world, then we should let you. We should let you hurt us so you can wallow in your guilt, or self-pity," Tristan began to tremble a little as he went on, "What would the pharaoh say Yugi? if he saw what you're doing right now?" he questioned.

My eyes grew wide. _If the pharaoh saw me now? he would probably tell me to stand up and not be foolish' face my problems like a man. Live life to the fullest like I used to.. Like he thought I would when he left... I suppose he's right. In a way. He would hate seeing me like this. So I'll do it.. for him._

I slowly lifted myself from the bed, and placed my bare feet on the hard floor. My friends gasped in surprise when they saw how thin I was. This, I expected. After all, it is to be expected after almost a week and a half of not eating, and only surviving on the occasional drink of water from the cup that my grandfather placed beside my bed every night.

"I'm sorry Tristan.. It's just so hard to let go..." I said, my eyes narrowed to prevent tears.

"He felt like a brother to me. He felt... like apart of me. And when he left, I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest and my world was crumbling around me." I choked out.

Tea sat on the edge of my bed and wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a soft embrace.

"We're always here for you Yugi, you should know that by now." she whispered softly into his ear.

For the first time in two weeks, he felt a small smile spread across his face as the realization hit him like a wave.

_Tea's right. I should know that. They've been with me since the beginning, and they'd never once refused to help me or even give up on me._

It was then that I knew that everything would be ok again. I would move on; I'd remember the pharaoh, and I'd never forget him. My friends would stand next to me helping me through every step of the way, encouraging me to take that big step forward and helping me whenever I stumbled or fell back a step.

Tristan and Joey both leaned over the bed and wrapped their arms around Tea and I.

This was it. Later on it would only feel like a small bump on the road. I would go back to school, and we would still have adventures. No matter what I did then, I knew that I had true friends, and I knew that, even in the after life, the pharaoh would be rooting for me until the very end where I would join together with him once more.


End file.
